1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus capable of achieving formation of a so-called complex image such as formation of overlapped images on one side of a paper sheet or formation of images on both sides of a paper sheet.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A conventional example of the above described type of image forming apparatus is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 1-236155. Such image forming apparatus comprises a body provided therein with an intermediate tray, a paper discharging device provided with a plurality of paper discharging locations and paper discharging guides capable of being switched to a posture allowing a paper sheet to pass downstream of the respective paper discharging locations, other than a final downstream paper discharging location, a paper resupplying device arranged at a downstream end side of the discharging device and a paper supplying cassette to be inserted into and extracted from the front side of the body. A paper discharging tray receives and discharges paper sheets on which an appointed image has been formed and is housed in the body.
Such known image forming apparatus of the above described construction enables the overlapped formation of images on one side of a paper sheet and formation of images on both sides of the paper sheet. The paper supplying cassette for supplying the paper sheets on which an image is to be formed, and the paper discharging tray for discharging the paper sheets on which one image has been formed are housed in the apparatus. Such structure has the advantage that the apparatus body does not have projections extending therefrom, whereby a space required for installing the apparatus can be reduced.
However, in the above described known image forming apparatus, the intermediate tray and the paper discharging tray are separately spaced vertically. Thus, the disadvantage has occurred that the construction for installation of such members is complicated and requires that the space within the apparatus body be increased, thus increasing the height of the body.